Last summer, the Augustine Institute partnered with Ignatius Press to launch the “Word of Life” catechesis program. Grades K-5 are currently available, and grades 6-8 will follow next summer.
The kindergarten program launched last summer, and this summer, grades 1-5 were released. Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption, had been a guiding launch date for grades 1-5. This date signifies the founding of the Augustine Institute, as well as when the partnership alliance between Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute was formed, according to Ben Akers, the Augustine Institute’s chief content officer.
“We have this multipronged approach where there are resources for the teachers that are communicating and teaching information, and then there’s also information for the parents,” Akers said. “While their students are going through a traditional classroom at a Catholic school or in a parish program, the parents also have information available to them.”
Christian Smith, a Catholic sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, discovered that what keeps kids Catholic into their adulthoods — and even keeps kids faith-filled — is if their parents talk about God with them on a day that isn’t Sunday, Smith said.
“We have found one of the strongest factors during the teenage years associated with youth being more committed to and practicing their faith later in their emerging adult years is having had parents who talked about religious matters during the week,” he continued.
“It’s that simple and basic,” Akers said. “It’s just the fact that the faith applies to me every day. So we’ve curated a journey for the parents that matches and complements what their kids are learning, so that the parents are equipped to also share the faith and have holy, spiritual conversations about the faith.”
Full story at Augustine Institute.
These look pretty good.
Thank God for the new Catholic Trade College coming to Stuebenville.
Once students graduate from the Catholic College of St. Joseph the Worker, they will have earned a bachelor’s degree in Catholic studies while becoming carpenters, electricians, masons, or heating, ventilating, and air conditioning technicians.
Lord knows the church doesn’t pay a living wage, so no point in studying theology at Steubenville anymore. That’s what people used to go there for. Now they can’t make a living working in parishes because parishes don’t pay enough.
If they can get a job. I know there are some who find DRE positions or youth director but everyone I know who went there is working Amazon, Target, Costco, Kroger, road crews etc.
It’s terrible that young people on fire for Christ and the Church get their hopes and lives crushed after graduating with theology degrees and a mountain of student debt but can’t find decent employment in the Church. I actively discourage any young people from throwing their lives away by aspiring to professional parish or diocesan work. I advise them to get a degree or learn a trade in something useful or lucrative. Then if you have free time volunteer for the parish. But don’t think the church will care about you as an employee nor take care of you. It won’t. That’s if you can even find a mediocre job in the church, as ncc pointed out.
When you go to Steubenville and you are not in a Theology/Catechetic major, you really do not get very many religion courses. I begged my son to make sure he took Catholic Morality and Catholic Social Teaching but he honestly couldn’t because there are only so many hours that you can realistically take and they need those for their major classes
It is a conservative Catholic environment. There are LGBTQ students. Sometimes there are students who seem as if their parents sent them there to straighten them out. None of those lasted very long. There is misbehavior from other students.
Environmentally, the biggest mistake they make is allowing alcohol in the dorm rooms. You have to be 21 years of age but a lot of these kids should not be drinking.
There is a lot of positive there. Almost everyone is a serious Catholic, which is the environment I wanted for my son.
Maybe they need a program to teach fundraising at the parish level. The depressing-spiraling down -why bother mentality can’t be from someone who has ever taken the idea of “many gifts” seriously
More neo-Conservative, VII rubbish to further rob another generation of Catholics of their patrimony.
Are you a sedevacantist or a sedeprivationist?
Or a BiPper (Benedict is Pope)?
Paul, have you read the material? Have you sat in on a class? How do you know what it is? Throwing grenades doesn’t help much. Tell us what you don’t like, grade by grade, chapter by chapter. If it is what you say it is, your research will help us all evaluate the material. Thanks in advance.
There is only one chapter available online and you just reminded me of other things where initially it is fine and then it degrades but by the time it degrades everybody has been convinced it is fine and nobody is scrutinizing it anymore.
As with many things, it all depends on the catechist who’s teaching the kids. A good catechist can teach well using even poor materials. Not even the best set of books in the world will help a lousy catechist. Unfortunately, 98% of parish catechists are lousy, and pastors need to wake up to the damage that bad catechists are inflicting on parish youth, especially in their teen years. It looks like the Augustine Institute is trying to address that reality with a set of helpful teacher guides, but it still depends almost entirely on the personality, knowledge and skill of the person who is the catechist.
How can it degrade? It’s printed in fixed form.
I am not saying this is like that but it would be like if the years where parents read with the children are 100% OK then as the kids get older and read for themselves, some indoctrination or ideas like Fr. Martin’s or the miracle of sharing or it is OK to use female pronouns for God creeps in. It might be just one sentence.
I repeat that this is not going on in this catechism that I know of-just answering your question.
I explored the samples. I agree it looks promising.